• Electronic Frontier Foundation, Thursday, March 12, 2009 12:01 PM

Google launched its behavioral targeting advertising program Wednesday, a move that was widely expected once Google completed its $3.1 billion purchase of DoubleClick a year ago. Soon thereafter, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a privacy watchdog, issued its response.

"The issues with behavioral advertising have been with us for over a decade (DoubleClick was founded in 1996, and privacy issues soon followed), and have grown as more people use more services online and more information has become available about your online behavior," writes the EFF's Kurt Opsahl. One of the main problems he has with data collection through cookies, is that despite the fact that Web users are free to delete their cookies, a new one is written the very next time your browser loads a banner ad. "The most privacy protective solution would be to have behavioral targeting systems be based on the user's opt-in," he says. Of course, "to no one's surprise, Google has not gone down that road." Opsahl also notes Google's response that, "Offering advertising on an opt-in basis goes against the economic model of the Internet."

Indeed, no other major player in online advertising has an opt-out targeting system. But, to Opsahl and EFF's surprise, Google has actually done a few things that make opt-out "quite a bit better." One of these is the "Advertising Cookie Opt-Out Plug-in," which allows users to keep their opt-out status for a particular browser event when they delete their cookies. Google also added an Ad Preferences Manager tool that allows users to express preferences about what sort of ads will result from their data tracking.

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